What A Difference A Year Makes

One year ago tight end JJ Jones was looking forward to his final Dartmouth season as a fifth-year senior. Now a Name, Image and Likeness deal celebrates his journey from his Tracy, Calif., home to the Ivy League, to Las Cruces as a New Mexico football "legacy":

🚨NIL Signing alert🚨 You always gotta bring your legacies back home. Cali ➡️ Ivy League ➡️ LC. Happy to partner with and announce @jj_jonessss as an #AMTN ambassador. Watch for him over the middle this season! #AggieNIL pic.twitter.com/Uw63ajNIUS

— A-Mountain Sports (@AMTNSPORTS) July 30, 2022

A little digging finds that the A-Mountain Sports NIL Collective, whose website says it is not affiliated with NM State, "exists to create unique opportunities to facilitate and support NM State student-athletes through their NIL and provide networking opportunities and business connections to ensure the success of our student-athlete Aggies. We seek to pool funds from contributors ranging from small to large, building a year-round resource to help individual sports and benefit student-athletes at NM State."

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From a release out of Canton, Ohio (LINK):

The Pro Football Hall of Fame has unveiled a new exhibit that recognizes women who have made a difference in professional football. 

Titled "Women’s Impact on Football," the exhibit is located in the Pro Football Today area of the Museum and features artifacts from women who have played, coached, officiated and broadcast the game at its highest level. 

Among those women is Callie Brownson, whose career took off after she came to Dartmouth as a quality control coach. Here's her part of the exhibit:

The explanation in the corner of her display reads:

Callie Brownson became the first woman to serve as a position coach during a regular season NFL game. Brownson, who is the team's Chief of Staff, handled gameday duties of tight ends coach Drew Petzing, who did not travel with the team after his wife gave birth to their first child. This is Brownson's sideline jacket and game ball from the Cleveland Browns victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars 27-25 on Nov. 29, 2020.

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This is kind of fun and may be of interest to newbies who never saw Memorial Field before the renovation ;-)

A couple of days ago I got an email announcing that my files on Amazon Drive were not going to be accessible after December of 2023. To be honest, I had no idea I had any files on Amazon Drive so I clicked through and found that as a trial I'd stuck a few pix on the site. This was one of them:

A quick history lesson. When Memorial Field was renovated the entire inside of the home grandstand was carefully pulled down while the outside wall was saved. Here the new construction has started.

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Dartmouth's Meet the Freshman series continues with an introduction to a pair of incoming running backs in Desmin Jackson, a 5-foot-10, 175-pounder from Orange Lutheran High School and Menifee, Calif., and Darius “DJ” Crowther, a 5-9, 185-pounder from Christian Brothers High School and Elk Grove, Calif..

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EXTRA POINT
Last night we crossed the Connecticut River and went to the 78th annual North Haverhill Fair on the wonderfully named Dartmouth College Highway.

Although we went to a bunch of summer fair-type events when the kids were growing up, this is one we somehow missed and so it was fun to share the experience with That Certain Nittany Lion '16. He was perhaps a little more interested than he might have otherwise been about the evening because the entrance fee included the chance to see country band LANCO, known best for their multi-platinum hit Greatest Love Story, which has been viewed more than 150 million times on YouTube.

While it's just a small-town deal, the North Haverhill Fair has brought some big names to the town of 843  about a half hour north of campus. Among others who have performed on the little stage next to the midway over the years are Keith Urban, Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton.

Saturday Stuff

Yesterday's BGA Daily post included a few observations on where incoming Ivy League freshman football players were not from. Today we'll have some notes about where they are coming from. But first a few bits from today's news . . .

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A local news outlet from Illinois has a story headlined, After starring at Dartmouth ,DeKalb grad Derek Kyler takes on new role at Pitt that sheds a little light on the former Big Green standout's surprise decision to continue his football career at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. (LINK)

The story reports, not at all surprisingly, that Pitt's first contact with Kyler was by Jonathan DiBiaso, a reserve quarterback at Dartmouth from 2015-17 before eventually graduating from Tufts. DiBiaso is an offensive grad assistant with the Panthers this fall.

From the story:

It was the chance to eventually become a coach that intrigued Kyler in May, after he had decided a few months earlier he was going to step away from the game. 

Per the story, Kyler will transition to a grad assistant role after the season 

More from the story . . .

“I realized I was very fortunate, very content with how my football career unfolded up to that point,” Kyler said. “I had a lot of success in DeKalb with my team, then I got to Dartmouth and I think we had the best run they ever had in program history. Part of me was very content with what I had done with football. I was fully content to use what I had gone to Dartmouth for in the long run, which was that degree.”

And . . .

Kyler arrived in Pittsburgh in mid-July and has been working on learning the playbook and working out with the team.

He said he knows his role, even if it is a new one for him – an experienced veteran who is coming in as the backup. He said he knows (USC transfer Kedon) Slovis is the starter.

“I think a lot of people were confused with that aspect of it. I was actually confused when they told me they needed a quarterback,” Kyler said. “I knew they had Kedon, knew he was coming in. But they said they just needed depth. That’s really all they're looking for, a veteran who can help in their QB room. It’s a different role for me. I’m always going to be ready to compete, but he came here for a reason.”

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From a story headlined, Garett Tujague Talks Virginia's Offensive Line Entering Fall Camp UVA's offensive line coach previewed fall camp and talked about the battle for the starting center position comes this (LINK):

Tujague expects there to be some significant competition for starting center during fall camp and he named sophomores Jestus Johnson III and Ty Furnish as frontrunners along with Dartmouth grad transfer John Paul Flores. If Flores does not end up starting at center, he is likely to end up playing elsewhere on the offensive line depending on need. The 6'5", 300-pound lineman was a two-year starter at left tackle at Dartmouth and was named to the All-Ivy League Second Team in 2021 after helping the Big Green win a second-consecutive Ivy League Championship.

The coach talks briefly about Flores at the 35-second mark of this short video clip:

 

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Also on the grad transfer front, a reporter finally touches on an intriguing angle in a story about the opening of UConn practice (LINK):

UConn added a number of impact transfers in the offseason, including offensive linemen Jake Guidone from Dartmouth, who joined the Huskies in December and will compete for the center position despite earning All-Ivy League honorable mention as a tight end in 2019.

Green Alert Take: Yup, I think an all-conference Division I tight end-to-center transition would make a pretty good story. 

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OK, now back to the incoming Ivy League freshmen and where they call home. Keeping in mind this is where the players live, not where they might attend prep school, the class features players from:

• 32 states
• The District of Columbia
• Canada
• Germany

The leading producers of Ivy League players in the Class of 2026:
• Texas (21 players)
• California (20)
• New Jersey (16)
• Florida (13)
• Ohio (13)
• Pennsylvania (13)
• Connecticut (10)
• Georgia (10)
• New York (10)

A few more fun facts:

• The most freshmen any school has from one state: Harvard has five from Texas. Just about every other school has four players from one or more states.

• Not surprisingly Texas and California have freshmen at all eight Ivies.

• Cornell is the only Ivy not to have a single incoming player from New Jersey, but it is the only school that can claim a recruit in this class from Alaska.

• States with recruits at seven schools with the missing school in (parenthesis): New Jersey (Cornell), Florida (Dartmouth), Ohio (Columbia), Pennsylvania (Yale).

• States with just one incoming recruit in addition to Alaska: Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina.

• Most concentration in New England: Brown 8 (Four Connecticut, three Massachusetts, one Rhode Island), Cornell 3, Penn 3.

• Incoming freshmen from California and Texas combined: Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Yale (6 apiece), Columbia 5, Penn 4, Cornell 2.

• Every school has players from 12-15 states.

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EXTRA POINT
This was really dumb.

Hiking last week I came across a fallen maple leaf that had already turned bright red and I was going to shoot a photo of it for BGA Daily as a sign that we are closing in on fall and football. I stuck the leaf in the pocket of my shorts and when I got home I had a pocketful of red confetti.

Earlier on this absolutely beautiful morning I found another very colorful leaf and thought to bring it home for a photo but this time, remembering what happened the last, I stuck the stem of the leaf in the elastic waistband of my hiking shorts to keep it from being destroyed.

Smart? Nope.

Dumb again.

About five minutes after finding the leaf I started to laugh and pulled the leaf out of my waistband. I almost always listen to a podcast while I hike on an old iPhone handed down by That Certain Dartmouth '14. With no SIM card or cell plan it's really just a glorified replacement for my outdated iPod Touch, and while it no longer is capable of making phone calls, it still has a mighty fine camera. Aha, I said to myself in one of those palm-to-forehead moments, I don't have to bring the leaf home. I have a camera with me, just as I did last week when that other leaf crumbled in my pocket.

So I gently placed the latest leaf on a piece of granite and shot this pic as an interesting reminder that fall and football are on the way:

Where They Are (Not) From

With Columbia getting onboard and finally posting its freshman football class I spent a little time yesterday working over the geographic breakdown of incoming players around the league. That will go up tomorrow.

Today we offer a list of where incoming players are not coming from. ;-)

(Before we go any further, a clarification. To avoid confusion surrounding prep schools, for this exercise the players' hometowns are used, not the location where they may have gone to a boarding school.)

That understood, here are the states that are not represented among the 210 or so players headed to the Ancient Eight this fall:

Arizona
Arkansas
Idaho
Kentucky
Maine
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Mexico
North Dakota
Oregon
South Dakota
Vermont
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Green Alert Take: Some states were pretty much slam dunks to make the list like the three from Northern New England, the Dakotas and Wyoming. The really surprising states might be Arizona, Oregon and Wisconsin.

As usual, Dartmouth did not have a player from New Hampshire but can you guess which other two Ivies did not have a player from their own states? Interestingly, there were a good number of Ivy recruits from their respective states but they didn't stay home for school. (Answer is just above the Extra Point.)

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Speaking of recruits, Dartmouth football's series of freshman graphics continues with Sean Williams, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound defensive back from Battleground Academy and Nolensville, Tenn. Williams, by the way, was coached at BGA (gotta love that) by former Dartmouth (and Princeton) secondary coach Adam Hollis.

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Oct. 15 Dartmouth opponent New Hampshire was for many years a fixture in the NCAA playoffs, but the Wildcats have gone just 13-20 over their last three full seasons and they aren't expected to be a factor in the powerhouse Colonial Athletic Association race this fall if the CAA poll is any indication. New Hampshire was chosen ninth in the 13-team superconference.

Here's the full poll with points and (first-place votes):

1. Villanova, 270 (16)

2. Delaware, 235 (7)

3. Rhode Island, 224

4. Richmond, 219

5. William & Mary, 206 (2)

6. Elon,191 (1)

7. Stony Brook, 151

8. Maine, 134

9. New Hampshire, 117

10. Monmouth, 105

11. Towson, 81

12. Albany, 64

13. Hampton, 31

Dartmouth ended a 13-game losing streak against its intrastate rival (and a 0-18-2 schneid) by knocking off the Wildcats in 2016 on Memorial Field by a 22-21 score. Last fall the Big Green won for the second time in a row in the series, 38-21, in Durham. This year's game will be in Hanover and will be the first with former UNH quarterback Ricky Santos as the CAA team's head coach.

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Dartmouth grad transfer Jake Guidone gets a mention in a story about the opening of the UConn camp that also mentions transfers coming in from Alabama, Texas, Missouri, Kentucky, UTEP, Boise State and Old Dominion. The Huskies also have newcomers from Colorado, Miami, Penn State and Florida International. (LINK)

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John Paul Flores, another Big Green grad transfer, gets this mention in a Virginia story (LINK):

Expect Jestus Johnson, Ty Furnish and Dartmouth transfer John Paul Flores to factor in the center position battle.

Green Alert Take: Interesting that Flores, like Guidone at UConn, is getting a look at center for his new FBS program after playing elsewhere on the line at Dartmouth.

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A Tweet regarding the Traumatic Brain Injury Research Collaboration between the Ivy League and the Big 10:

10th Big Ten-Ivy League TBI Summit off to a great start with welcomes from Robin Harris, Exec Dir @IvyLeague, & Keith Marshall, Exec Dir, @BigTenAcademic pic.twitter.com/PFhjvY8TB9 

— Big Ten Academic (@BigTenAcademic) July 26, 2022

Green Alert Take: It gets the point across, but that has to be one of the worst logos I've ever seen. Here's another look:

To learn more about the important work of the TBI Research Collaboration CLICK HERE.

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Did you spend any time with the Most Wins Major College Football History thing on BGA Daily yesterday? If you didn't, your assignment is to go back and watch it. I did and noticed something I missed the first time around.

Because the title has to do with "major college" Ivy League teams are not credited with wins after the IA-IAA split in 1981.

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Answer to question above: Harvard and Yale, which have had pretty good success recruiting Massachusetts and Connecticut, do not have any incoming recruits from their home states this fall.

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EXTRA POINT
After a picture from my morning hike appeared in this space earlier this week I got a question about the trail, so here's a little more info.

The trailhead is just under two miles up the dirt road from our house. It's a modest little mountain with the peak at just 1,822 feet and only about 500-600 feet of elevation gain on my three-mile loop. At this time of year I'll spend about 40-45 minutes on it before sitting down to work on BGA Daily unless it's one of those days when I run all but the steepest uphills.

I haven't kept a log but I'd estimate I've been going up it about 250-275 times a year, using microspikes and occasionally snowshoes in the winter. 

One night last winter I brought a strong flashlight to the peak and from an overlook aimed it in the direction of our house so Mrs. BGA could let me know when I got home exactly where the eastern overlook is. This is the mountain as seen this morning from the end of our driveway. My hike starts just over the ridge on the right side of this photo, reaches the top and loops to the right on this side of the mountain.

Thursday Headlines

With preseason camp days away Dartmouth's grad transfers are getting a few more mentions.

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The Tribune-Democrat out of Johnstown, Pa., has a piece headlined Pitt football | Panthers looking at QB battle, boosted RB versatility as camp looms that includes a few sentences about Derek Kyler HERE.

Kyler, by the way, either bought a blue-and-gold striped tie or borrowed one from a teammate for the photo accompanying his bio on the Pitt website HERE. The bio notes that he's enrolled in Pitt's Katz Graduate School of Business.

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The Las Cruces Sun News includes tight end JJ Jones in a story headlined, New Mexico State position preview: Aggies will need first-year receivers to produce. (LINK)

Unlike Kyler, Jones does not yet have a photo on his NMSU bio HERE. Nor does the bio mention what the mechanical engineering graduate will be studying as a grad student.

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Two more additions to the Meet the Freshman series have been posted by the Dartmouth football office. The first is Tyson Grimm, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound defensive back from Archbishop Hoban High School and Ravenna, Ohio.

The second is Joe Onuwabhagbe, a 6-2½, 260 defensive lineman from Hebron High School and Carrollton, Texas.

Green Alert Take: Longtime PA voice of Dartmouth football John Cameron wrapped up his final season behind the mic last fall. With all due respect, here's wishing good luck to his successor every time Joe O makes a tackle. ;-)

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A loyal BGA reader shared this from Instagram and if you are watching closely you'll see Dartmouth make an appearance. Be sure to click the arrow in the middle. Caution: This is mesmerizing and to make it moreso, be sure the sound is on:

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Barstool Sportsbook (@barstoolsportsbook)

If that's not working for you, check it out over on Instagram by clicking HERE.

Green Alert Take: Gotta admit, I enjoyed watching Penn State climb the ranking after Dartmouth faded.

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The Analyst has a story spun out of the Patriot League media day that includes this about old friend Holy Cross (LINK):

The Crusaders will seek to match the 1998-2001 Lehigh squads as a second Patriot program to win four straight league championships, and they have a chance to become the first to claim four outright titles in a row.

And this:

Holy Cross has defeated 11 straight Patriot League opponents by a combined a 413-140. 

Green Alert Take: Honestly, can anyone out there tell me they'd rather see Dartmouth roll against another overmatched Pioneer Football League team than go head-to-head with a traditional rival that, like Dartmouth, is at the top of its game? I didn't think so.

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Spotted on Twitter:

OK, I looked around and couldn't find any explanation for this thing other than the headline, The Most Hostile College Fanbase in Every State. It's not just football since Alaska is included and it doesn't have a college football team at any level.

Green Alert Take: While it's nice to see Dartmouth getting the nod in New Hampshire that loses a lot of credibility when DIII Castleton State is recognized in Vermont. Clearly whoever did this has never seen a basketball game at the University of Vermont or spent any time in Leede Arena or, unfortunately, at Thompson Arena in the last couple of decades.

Green Alert Take II: With apologies to Derek Kyler, Pitt over Penn State? Once again, I don't think so.

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Speaking of Leede Arena, the fellow who does somewhat tongue-in-cheek looks at football stadiums (Ivy League HERE) has now turned his attention to basketball arenas in the Ancient Eight. It's not as detailed or as funny but the comment on what Harvard's Lavietes Pavilion looks like from above is a keeper.

 

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EXTRA POINT
For a lunch meeting yesterday in Hanover I drove 25 or so miles south on I-91, across the Ledyard Bridge and up West Wheelock into town, went two blocks through lunch-hour traffic on Main Street and turned into a municipal parking lot on South Street. Here's the wild thing. Not one time in all that driving did I touch the brakes of my electric car.

I was "one-pedal" driving, something I'm able to do because the car has "regenerative braking." For those of you who don't have an EV, how can I explain what that's like?

OK, this is a little out there but bear with me.

If you are of a certain age you may have had a dynamo light generator on your bicycle when you were a kid. When it got dark you'd push a lever down and the generator would now rub up against the tire of your bike, sending juice that would light up your headlight. The faster you went, the brighter the light.

The down side was, because the generator was pressing against the wheel it made pedaling harder and slowed you down.

Regenerative braking works the same way. Letting the "gas" pedal up essentially engages the generator, slowing you down while sending juice to the car's battery pack. And like that little wheel rubbing against your bicycle tire, you can actually feel the engine slowing the car down.

Don't worry. It's not as if when you take your foot off the "gas" it's like standing on the brakes (which you can still do if necessary). But it does a pretty good job of smoothly stopping you. So good, in fact, that the first time I let That Certain Dartmouth '14 drive our EV and explained how taking her foot off the "gas" would stop the car she ended up at a complete stop about 30 feet from the intersection.

So yeah, there's a bit of a learning curve. But trust me. You can get the hang of it in 10 minutes.

There's really only one downside. As the dealer explained to us, when you have an EV there are no oil changes and many fewer parts than a regular car, so maintenance is minimal. The one surprising thing they've discovered that requires service from time to time? The brakes. It turns out they can get a little dusty and rusty from lack of use. 

(For a better explanation of one-pedal driving, CLICK HERE.)

With The Season Approaching, A History Lesson

The FCS season kicks off one month from today with seven games. The only team from the Northeast playing that day is Duquesne, which will collect a big check at Florida State.

The first game for a Dartmouth opponent is Sept. 1, when New Hampshire will play host to Monmouth. That's in 37 days. Valparaiso and Sacred Heart open upin 39 days (Sept. 3) with the Beacon entertaining Indiana Wesleyan and Sacred Heart traveling to Lafayette.

Dartmouth and the rest of the Ivy League begin play in 53 days, on Sept. 17.

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There's a thread on the message board Any Given Saturday under the headline 2022 Ivy and Patriot Leagues Megathread that has worked its way around to what it terms the "resurgence" of Dartmouth football. Here is the latest post as of this writing, with the italicized part quoted from the previous message (LINK):

This may be a bit of a hot take, but (then-Dartmouth president) Jim Yong Kim is just as responsible (if not more) for Dartmouth's football resurgence as Buddy Teevens.

Kim definitely helped. But he happened to show up pretty much at the time that Dartmouth football got its act together. Within a year (either way) of Kim's arrival, Dartmouth

(1) built a new football varsity house. The old one was very outdated. The new one rivaled or exceeded the locker/weight rooms of some BCS schools that were looking at the same recruits we were.

(2) hired two excellent assistant coaches who still are on staff and who have produced numerous All-Ivy players. Coaches Dobes and Clark were respectively let go in coaching shakeups at Princeton and Yale. Teevens was more than happy to offer them landing spots. The rest is history.

(3) got rid of a killer nonconference schedule that saw us go 0-3 or (at best) 1-2 out of conference every year. We signed 15-year deals with Colgate, Holy Cross, and UNH at a time when all three of them were highly competitive teams. For a team trying to get back on its feet, playing tough opponents to open the season every year was a recipe for disaster.

Kim was definitely a great cheerleader and that certainly makes a difference. But I'd put the above three as more impactful items for Dartmouth's turnaround.

Here's what is missing from a pretty solid summary of how Dartmouth climbed the Ivy League standings – Rick Taylor.

With a lot of newbies stopping by this electronic precinct who weren't here during the difficult times for the Big Green this is as good a time as any for a little history lesson.

After a strong run culminating with a 10-0 record in 1996 and an 8-2 mark the next year, the Big Green program imploded. The win totals in consecutive years starting in 1998 were 2, 2, 2, 1, 3, 5, and 1 in 2004.

Buddy Teevens was brought back to Hanover in 2005 to turn the program around, but after the struggles continued with records of 2-8, 2-8, 3-7, and 0-10 in 2008, Dartmouth paid Rick Taylor to conduct a review of the football program and make recommendations.

Taylor certainly knew his way around a football field, the Ivy League and athletic administration. He had been a Dartmouth assistant from 1971-76 and then a successful head coach at Boston University from 1977-84 before going on to serve as athletic director at BU, Cincinnati and finally Northwestern from 1994-2003.

In August of 2009, coming off a winless season and saddled with a 7-33 record over Buddy Teevens first four years back, Acting Athletic Director Bob Ceplikas shared a letter about the state of Dartmouth football program (find the full letter HERE) that spoke to Taylor's role. From that letter:

This past spring, we engaged Rick Taylor to conduct an external review of the entire football program. Rick was an assistant coach at Dartmouth in the 1970s, went on to be head coach at Boston University, and then was a highly-respected Athletic Director at BU, Cincinnati, and Northwestern. Rick made two visits to the campus and met with Buddy, his assistants, current players, senior athletics administrators, support personnel, Dean Crady, Dean of Admissions Maria Laskaris '84, Vice-President for Development Carrie Pelzel '54a, and alumni representatives, including former Dartmouth AD Seaver Peters '54 and former Big Green coach and longtime Syracuse AD Jake Crouthamel '60. Rick also consulted with the current Ivy athletic directors and researched our competitors' programs. Rick's thorough report concluded that we are closer to success than our recent record suggests — especially with the improved facilities and admissions landscape — but also made some recommendations on which we are now acting . . .

The rest is history.

In 2009, the first year after the report – and before any of the recommendations could be implemented – Dartmouth was 2-8. The Big Green went 6-4 in 2010 and there’s been just one losing season since (4-6 in 2016). Dartmouth has gone 35-5 over the past four years and 9-1 in each of the past three.

Newbies might be interested to know that Columbia, having seen how things progressed in Hanover, would follow the Dartmouth blueprint and bring in Rick Taylor to review its football program. That led to the hiring of Al Bagnoli and the remarkable turnaround in the Big Apple.

Green Alert Take: The wonder is that at least one more stumbling Ivy League program hasn't put in a call to Rick Taylor.

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The Patriot League preseason poll is out and not at all surprisingly, Holy Cross is a strong favorite, garnering 11 of 14 first-place votes. Here's the poll with points and (firsts):

1. Holy Cross, 71 (11)
2. Fordham, 61 (2)
3. Colgate, 50 (1)
4. Lafayette, 42
5. Lehigh, 35
6. Georgetown, 21
7. Bucknell, 14

Green Alert Take: The Patriot League poll should be of a lot more interest to Dartmouth but given a change in scheduling philosophy it's of little interest. It's too bad the Pioneer Football League poll is more germane for the Big Green.

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The Manchester Union Leader has a story noting a significant number of player defections in the upcoming Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl game between graduated seniors from New Hampshire and Vermont. Long a highlight of the summer here in the Twin States, it's dried up into almost an afterthought since the renovation of Dartmouth's Memorial Field led to it losing its longtime home.

Of note in the story (LINK) is the mention of a former Dartmouth player holding a Shrine record:

• Most extra points made: Hanover’s Dan Gorman (eight/2012)

Gorman '16 went on to play wide receiver for the Big Green, winning the Manners Makyth Man Award as a senior. 

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Dartmouth football's Meet the Freshman series continues with 6-foot-5, 280-pound offensive lineman Vasean Washington of Springfield High School in Springfield, Ohio, and Abayomi Babalola, a 6-2, 230 linebacker from Enochs HS and Riverbank, Calif.

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EXTRA POINT
It was an absolutely gorgeous morning for a hike with the temperature hovering around 50 degrees, no humidity to speak of and the fog burning off rivers, ponds and lakes below. The rocky outcropping I was on here cast a clear shadow over the landscape below.

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 A couple of mentions of grad transfers from Dartmouth are sprinkled around the interwebs . . .

A preview of the Buffalo Bulls' offensive "skill" positions this fall includes this about Robbie Mangas '20 (LINK):

. . . (T)he Bulls also recruited several tight ends from lower divisions. Ray Embry earned all-conference honors at the Division II level while Robbie Mangas averaged over 20 yards per catch at Dartmouth while serving as the team captain. These are necessary additions to a team losing plenty of depth at the position.

All totaled, Mangas is one of seven tight ends on the Bulls' roster this year. Embry, the other transfer tight end, came to Buffalo from East Central University in Oklahoma. 

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From a story headlined, Will a patchwork offensive line throttle the high-octane Virginia offense? there's this  (LINK):

(Head coach) Tony Elliott has the ACC’s best QB1 and maybe the nation’s top wideout corps. But for the Virginia offense to work, he’s going to need to patch together an offensive line.

And then . . .

. . . (G)rad transfer John Paul Flores (6’5”, 300, Dartmouth) . . . was a second-team All-Ivy selection in 2021, grading out at 67.4 on 621 snaps over 10 games.

Flores had offers from a host of schools, including SMU, Temple and East Carolina, so, FCS guy or not, it wasn’t just Virginia that thought he could contribute at the next level.

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Dartmouth is bringing back its popular Football 101 family event, which was shut down the past two years because of the pandemic. From a press release (LINK):

The Upper Valley community is invited to join the Big Green football team, coaching staff and their families for a "mini-camp" — a night out with food, football and fun that is guaranteed to get you ready for the 2022 season.

This event, scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 10 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Memorial Field, is free and includes activities for children 12 and under and their parents, such as on-field skill stations run by the Dartmouth football staff and photo stations. In addition, there will be free food, and the first 200 registrants will receive a free Dartmouth string bag.

Register online for Football 101 HERE.

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The Dartmouth football office has cranked out the next two Meet the Freshman graphics. The first is for Daniel Haughton, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound wide receiver from Charlotte Latin and Weddington, N.C..

The other is for Delby Lemieux, a 6-4, 260 offensive lineman from Duxbury High School and Duxbury, Mass..

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The Ivy League is advertising for an "Assistant Executive Director, Communications & Championships," to work at its office in Princeton. Per the job listing, the person is expected to . . . 

"Provide timely and accurate updates to all communications platforms (e.g., website, social media, media outreach) regarding updates for all assigned sports including scores, league standings, tiebreaker scenarios and postseason awards to maximize the potential reach." (LINK)

Green Alert Take: Here's hoping the person the Ivy League hires will make a positive difference in the web presence of Ivy League football. After several years of haranguing the conference, I was pleased to see the Ivy football record book finally being updated last year. At least I was pleased until I started looking through it and saw how many areas had not actually been updated. This one example will gnaw at the Dartmouth faithful:

"LONGEST WINNING STREAKS -VS- ONE SCHOOL

11 Harvard over Dartmouth............................ 2004-Present

Dartmouth, of course, has won the last three games in the series . . .

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Speaking of help-wanted ads, this one is kind of curious:

Director of Strength, Speed and Performance (Dartmouth College / Hanover, NH): To lead the decision-making team (coaching staff) in planning, coaching, administering, and promoting the Strength, Speed and Performance program within NCAA, Ivy League, and institutional standards.

The full posting is HERE. 

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EXTRA POINT
Last week I ordered something for our old VW camper and early yesterday I received an email from the manufacturer saying they couldn't ship it to the address I provided because the address was "invalid."

This has been a frequent issue since we moved to our Vermont hillside home. Let me explain.

Because the U.S. Postal Service does not deliver to the four houses on our part of the road we have no choice but to get a box at our little post office, two miles away. That being the case, our actual street address apparently isn't in the USPS database.

The problem arises when automated websites and delivery services use the USPS database. We'll order something online and when we type in our house number, street and town we will sometimes get a message informing us there is no such address. I'm here to tell you there is.

In the VW part case I received a personalized email from an actual human and was able to reassure her that the address does actually exist and packages are in fact delivered here. (Per online tracking, it should be here Thursday.)

Sometimes when we try to order online we put in our address and it "corrects" it from West Newbury, Vt. to Bradford, Vt., the next town south. That offers its own set of problems as I found out last month when a package was being held as "unclaimed" at the Bradford Post Office, even though it was addressed to our house. I had no idea it was there until I called the Bradford PO on a hunch.

Honestly, I don't mind the fact that we don't get mail delivery here. It was the same when we lived on the shoulder of Moose Mountain in New Hampshire. There's a pleasant social component that comes with occasionally seeing neighbors at the post office. But I sure wish the automated online ordering forms would believe us when we tell them where we live.

A Big Question

With Derek Kyler graduating and heading to Pitt this fall as a graduate transfer one of the big questions surrounding the Dartmouth football program heading into the 2022 season is whether Nick Howard can succeed as the Big Green's fulltime quarterback. Or will he reprise his role as the running QB with someone else doing most of the passing? The answer remains to be seen but it's worth noting that while he threw just 18 passes last fall, Howard is no stranger to the passing game.

This is from his Dartmouth bio:

Led conference (as a high school senior) with 2,004 yards passing and finished second with 15 touchdowns through the air despite missing one game … fourth in conference with 636 yards rushing (6.6 yards per rush) and 10 touchdowns on the ground … topped 300 passing yards in each of first three games as a senior … topped 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns passing in his high school career and almost 2,000 yards rushing while averaging 5.8 yards.

This highlight video from his days shows him dropping back and throwing at Green Bay's Southwest High School (as well as running people over):

 

For the record, Howard was a solid 11-of-18 passing (61.1 percent) for 126 yards with one touchdown and one interception last fall. He also ran 125 times for 787 yards (6.3 average) with 15 touchdowns while winning a spot on the All-Ivy League first team.

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Howard and the rest of the Big Green will have their first official practice of the preseason on Aug. 21 with intrasquad scrimmages set for Sept. 3 and Sept. 8 leading into the Sept. 17 opener against Valparaiso on Memorial Field.

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Former Dartmouth assistant Callie Brownson, now chief of staff of the Cleveland Browns, is taking a little time away from the NFL team to serve as head coach of the U.S. Women’s Tackle National Team, which will be playing for the World Championships in Finland. Read an Akron Beacon Journal story about Brownson applying the "gold standard" measure to the women's team HERE, and listen to her below:

The U.S. Women's Tackle National Team Training Camp is underway!

Head Coach @calbrown17 breaks down what goes into training camp in preparation for the World Championships in Finland. #USALLIN #goldstandard @Browns @NFL pic.twitter.com/XilKHRJWLU

— U.S. National Football Team (@USNFT) July 22, 2022

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This video is just 40 seconds or so but the drone used to shoot the aerial view of Memorial Field actually went through the goal posts:

 

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EXTRA POINT
I got a copy of the Dartmouth preseason practice schedule this morning and wanted to write it on the large "at a glance" vinyl planner on the office wall here in the BGA World Headquarters. Unfortunately, because that particular calendar is used only for Big Green football the red, blue and green "dry erase" markings I wrote on it a full year ago had set and would not wipe off.

OK, that's a fib. I was able to clear off what was written in just one of the days in the three month calendar by rubbing it – aggressively – for five minutes. Doing the entire calendar like that was going to be a nightmare.

With a little Googling I found a solution. Toothpaste!

With a healthy dab of Crest on a paper towel I was able to erase the entire calendar in less time (and certainly with less effort) than it had taken to erase just one of the boxes on the 120-day planner.

That's your hack for the day ;-) 

Sunday Stuff

There will be a few familiar names in Amherst, Mass., on Oct. 15 when Buffalo invades McGuirk Alumni Stadium to take on UMass.

Tight end Robbie Mangas '22 will be suited up as a grad transfer for the Bulls and when he looks across the field he'll see both a former teammate, a former teammate's brother, and a two-time Dartmouth assistant coach.

The former teammate and assistant coach get a mention in a Buffalo story looking at the Bulls' schedule this fall. From the story (LINK):

Anybody who knows Don Brown knows that he loves to blitz, but there does seem to be a bit of a hole at linebacker. Leading tackler Gerrell Johnson returns, but everybody else of note is gone. Johnson is solid, having racked up 80 tackles and 1.5 sacks last year, but he will need help. Rutgers transfer Zukudo Igwenagu seems in line to claim one of the other linebacker spots, as does Dartmouth transfer Jalen Mackie. This unit is a question mark.

Brown, of course, is the highly regarded but peripatetic head coach at UMass who started his college coaching career at Dartmouth in the 1980s. Jalen Mackie '22, is a grad transfer who earned All-America recognition with the Big Green last fall.

And as a bonus, UMass has a 6-foot-5, 250-pound graduate student tight end named Jaret Pallotta, whose brother Jake '20, played quarterback at Dartmouth where he was a teammate of both Mackie and Mangas.

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Just posted on YouTube is a highlight film from Dartmouth's 30-6 win over Harvard in 1927. The film isn't in good shape but keep an eye out for Myles Lane, the Big Green's All-America running back, future NHL player and eventual New York State Supreme Court justice.

 

Green Alert Take: With no numbers on the front of the jerseys and both uniforms coming across as black, good luck even figuring out which team is which. Big, big crowd, though ;-)

Tired of that flickering and snowy picture? Give your eyes a break and watch the highlights of last fall's 20-17 Dartmouth win in the same stadium:

 

I don't know how long it will stay up before whoever owns the rights to the broadcast catches up with him, but someone posted the entire 2021 Dartmouth-Harvard game HERE. 

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If you've been paying any attention, you know that Dartmouth will have two players on the roster this fall from Germany. Konstantin Spörk is a promising 6-5, 275 offensive lineman from Pulheim, Germany and Nico Schwikal is a 6-3, 230 freshman linebacker from Schönfeld, Germany.

Huh? What's going on here?

Glad you asked. Check out a story headlined, How Germany tackled American football and made it their own; In a football-mad country, discover why these German players have picked the gridiron over the pitch to chase their dreams HERE.

While we're at it, Dartmouth has had an impact on the growth of football in Germany. All-time great receiver Craig Morton '89 played for the Frankfurt Galaxy in the NFL-backed World League of American Football in the early '90s and former Dartmouth head coach John Lyons was interim head coach of the Cologne Centurions for a bit during several seasons overseas as the team's defensive coordinator.

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EXTRA POINT
Just about a month ago I complained in this space about the hassle I had replacing the batteries in one of our smoke detectors when it started to chirp. I finally managed but it was much harder than it should have been. (LINK)

I don't expect it was the same unit but one of the numerous alarms in our house went off at 3:30 this morning, but by the time Mrs. BGA and I jumped out of bed it stopped. That sent us scurrying all over the house to see if there was a problem. There wasn't.

OK, maybe there was come to think of it. If the batteries in the alarm in the BGA World Headquarters needed to be replaced then there's a very good chance there are others that should be replaced. We'll be doing a thorough inspect to make sure all of the alarms use the same batteries and then trading them out.

Better a false alarm than no alarm, but better yet, no false alarm.

Worth A Look

It's Saturday and you've got the time. Here's a Ted Talk by Dartmouth president-elect Sian Leah Beilock: Why we choke under pressure and how to avoid it  that begins with the story of her struggles as a soccer goalie when she realized a national team coach was watching her:

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Ivan Hoyt, a 6-foot, 188-pound wide receiver from Cornerstone HS and Boerne, Texas, is the next incoming player introduced in the Dartmouth football program's Meet the Freshman series:

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Posted just this week is a lengthy interview with Dartmouth strength coach Spencer Brown as part of the Samson Strength Coach Collective series. It is introduced this way:

Spencer Brown, who is the Director of Strength and Conditioning at Dartmouth College joins us to talk about empowering others, navigating the balance that is required in the field of strength and conditioning, and many other extremely valuable topics!

This episode is jam-packed with incredible insight from Spencer; we really cover some ground in this one. Enjoy!

 

(It's hard to see but there's a white triangle pointing to the right to start the video.) 

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Two Dartmouth players are among the 600 names included on the NFL Draft Diamonds 2023 Small School Prospect Watch List" of top "Small Schoolers." The thinking here is you might guess one of the two. Wonder who they are? Think about it and then find the answer is just above today's Extra Point.

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Neither of the Dartmouth players made the Draft Scout Top 100 Small School Prospects list but three other Ivy players from two schools did. (LINK) They are:

14. Wide receiver Andrei Iosivas –Princeton
28. Corner Alex Washigton – Harvard
81 Defensive end Uche Ndukwe – Princeton

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Dartmouth's preseason starts in 29 days. Former Big Green quality control coach/recruiting director Callie Brownson's final camp as head coach of the U.S. Women’s Tackle National Team started this week. Here she is addressing the team, which will play in the world championships in Vantaa, Finland between July 28 and August 4:

Work towards that #GoldStandard pic.twitter.com/u9KP0RIcwM

— U.S. National Football Team (@USNFT) July 22, 2022

The American team will be bidding for its fourth world title in as many tries. Brownson played on two of the three gold medal teams. Other nations that qualified for the tournament are Australia, Finland, Great Britain, Sweden, Canada, Germany and Mexico.

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The Biletnikoff Award Watch List has a familiar name on it. Jake Bobo, a grad transfer from Duke who will play this fall at UCLA, was included (LINK). If the last name is familiar it might be because his father, Mike '92, was Dartmouth's leading receiver in 1990 and '91, serving as captain as a senior.

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Dartmouth names on the NFL Draft Diamonds 2023 Small School Prospect Watch List? Quarterback Nick Howard and 6-foot-6, 300-pound offensive lineman Adam Will. (LINK)

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EXTRA POINT
We lived 1.9 miles up a hilly dirt road overlooking Hanover before we moved to Vermont and I loved it. Believe it or not, I had a lot more confidence driving on a snow-covered dirt road than a snow-covered paved road. I thoroughly enjoyed living on an unpaved road – except for a month or so each spring.

Our hillside home here in Vermont is also on a dirt road but here's the thing. It's just one-tenth of a mile down our hill until we hit pavement, so mud season isn't really an issue heading into town.

Heading the other way is another story. The road to my hiking trail was two miles of oatmeal this spring and the two miles in the other direction to our post office wasn't much fun either, although it was nowhere near as impassable as the road to the trailhead.

Mud season is well behind us and with a lack of rain this summer it has been replaced by dust season. I've been using a whisk broom on my back window almost every time I get back from my hike or checking the mail. I can wash the car and after one trip to the post office you would never know it. It would win a "dirtiest car in the parking lot" contest at any minor league ballpark in the country.

Here's the rear windshield of my newly washed car after just one five-minute trip to the post office:

There are some states where they spray oil on the road to keep the dust down. Not in Vermont, thankfully. Trying to keep the car clean is a pain, but it beats that alternative!

Fun fact: Vermont is listed as having at least 8,600 miles of dirt roads to 7,151 miles of paved roads.

Sounds Promising

Dartmouth has had presidents who were gung-ho about sports, like Jim Kim. (CLICK HERE to watch a short, shaky video I shot of Kim throwing a football a dozen years ago.)

The College also has had presidents like James Freedman, who were significantly less interested in athletics.

With yesterday's announcement that Sian Leah Beilock would succeed Phil Hanlon next year and be Dartmouth's first woman president it is only natural to wonder what impact she will have on the largely struggling (apart from football) Big Green athletic program. One thing is certain: She's no stranger to the playing field.

Consider this from the book Psyched Up: How the Science of Mental Preparation Can Help You Succeed by Daniel McGinn:

Sian Beilock has spent twenty years studying how, when, and why people cause problems by overthinking. It's a topic she learned about firsthand as a teenager. At fifteen, she was a soccer goalie in the U.S. Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program, a path that could have led her to Olympic or World Cup competition. Then one day, with the Olympic coach watching from just behind her goal, she could feel her brain behaving differently. "I felt self-conscious," she recalls. "I had a total meltdown and let in two goals." Her dreams of playing soccer in the Olympics ended that afternoon.

And then there's this from a column she wrote at Barnard, where she serves as the president (LINK):

I believe in the power of athletic pursuit. In school I was always interested in math and science, but I was also an avid athlete, mostly playing soccer and then later, lacrosse. I loved the athletic field and was totally dedicated. I even had a chance to play soccer in the Olympic development program at some of the highest levels. 

In the video posted here yesterday she mentions that she "loves Dartmouth's focus on athletics."

Green Alert Take: Is there a chance she will recognize how wrong it is that every Ivy League sport except football is allowed to advance to the NCAA playoffs?

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This was Dartmouth football's Throwback Thursday Tweet and while it's only "throwing back" 10 months, it's worth another look:

#ThrowbackThursday to our 2021 Granite Bowl victory‼️#TheWoods pic.twitter.com/fRHTwK8aNJ

— Dartmouth Football (@DartmouthFTBL) July 21, 2022

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Former Dartmouth quarterback/athlete Jared Gerbino was the subject of a terrific WHAM TV piece about his international football success this year:

(After starting, click the little rectangle in the lower right corner to go full screen.)

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Another day, another Meet the Freshman graphic. Today's subject is 6-foot-4, 220-pound Sean Ward of Cleveland, Ohio and St. Ignatius HS. As noted in this space previously, he's not just a tight end but also a high school rugby national champion and bowling team captain.

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Just when you thought the sea change in college athletics might be slowing down comes this:

The Division I Council is recommending that the NCAA get rid of the “one-time” part of its transfer rule.

Anyone would be able to transfer and have immediate eligibility, if they meet academic standards. Athletes could transfer multiple times and play right away.

— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) July 21, 2022

Green Alert: True story. In addition to Dartmouth, I covered basketball at a Division III school when I was at the local daily. One year there was a player who competed against the team I covered at the end of the fall semester and was playing for the school I covered when the new semester began in January. I remember thinking that kind of thing could never happen in Division I. Now I'm not so sure.

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EXTRA POINT
We had an incredible series of storm cells blow through Vermont yesterday and I got caught up in one in during the early afternoon. Although there was rain in the forecast, when I hopped in the car for the two-mile drive to our little post office the skies did not seem particularly threatening. I picked up the mail and was just a half mile from home when the heavens opened up. First it was pounding rain and then hail. Or maybe it was hail first and then the rain. It was so dramatic and overwhelming I'm not sure which. All I'm sure of is that it was so blinding I almost pulled over to wait it out. Instead, I made it the final half mile home where I was relieved and surprised to find that my car was not dimpled like a golf ball from the pounding hail as I had feared.

As often happens, the storm at least temporarily cleared out the hot and hazy air. It was so crisp and beautiful when I did my morning hike that when I got back I headed a quarter mile up the road and shot this picture. The white stripe is fog arising from the Connecticut River. Our house is beyond the sugar bush to the right ;-)

Click photo to enlarge.

New Dartmouth President

Find the announcement of Sian Leah Beilock, currently the president of Barnard College HERE.

In the following video she says she "loves Dartmouth's focus on athletics" at the 3:08 (or so) mark:

Find a Dartmouth "About" the President-elect page HERE. From that page:

Sian Leah Beilock is the president-elect of Dartmouth. She is the first woman to be elected president of Dartmouth by the Board of Trustees and will begin her tenure in the 2023-24 academic year.

Beilock currently serves as the eighth president of Barnard College at Columbia University. One of the most selective academic institutions in the world, Barnard is devoted to empowering exceptional women to change the world and the way we think about it.

Of interest on that page:

Beilock is one of the world's leading experts on the brain science behind "choking under pressure" in business, education, and sports.

And . . .

She works closely with individuals, Fortune 500 companies, sports teams, and government organizations to help them build high-performance teams and use research-driven strategies to create environments that attract, retain, and get the best out of their talent.  

Wikipedia page.